For King and Country ⭒Caspian x Reader⭒

Chapter 18

"Grab your cloak," Caspian stood in my doorway. A dark cloak shrouded half of his face until he pushed the hood back to reveal his kind eyes.

"You scared me," I startled, throwing the covers off of my legs and jumping off the bed, "Where are we going at this hour?"

"It's a surprise," Caspian's eyes twinkled as he watched me tie the strings of my cloak under my chin.

A lantern tapped against his leg casting a golden glow on the wooden floor beneath him illuminating him in a puddle of light. He reached his hand out to me and I slipped my hand into his as he whisked me out of my room. Caspian pulled me into alcoves when we thought we heard servants and nobles coming close by, not because he was some child who had a set bedtime, but the thrill of not being caught was too enticing.

Our kiss out on the waves had been spotted by a stray servant, but it flitted through the castle as every rumor did. At that point, gossip had spread that I had been courting every man that inhabited the castle. Caspian's name had been thrown into that pot so many times already, it was hard for courtiers to tell fact from fiction, so our precious secret stayed one, for the sole reason that we relished the delicious danger of it.

We fled across the fields, hands entwined, just the flicker of lantern light like a beacon in the darkness as Caspian navigated the heavy shrubbery of the forest. Only the sound of our feet and the metal of the lantern clanking filled the atmosphere as we disappeared into the night.

"You're really not going to give me a hint?" I said breathlessly, as I kept up our exhausting pace.

"Not even one," He threw a fiendish grin back at me.

"Taking a poor woman into the woods alone at night? Some might say your intentions are wicked," I said as Caspian slowed our pace.

"I always have wicked plans for you," He said whispering in my ear sending shivers down my spine, "But that will have to wait till after."

Caspian pulled me into a clearing where a large pool of water flowed in small ripples underneath a waterfall that tumbled over a cliff. The water was clear and the full moon reflected off of its surface like a candle in a mirror. Something about the clearing seemed untouched as if it had never had human eyes set upon it before.

"What is this place?" I said, turning in a small circle.

"Ingermis Cove," Caspian's gaze caught mine, "They say this is where the first water nymph was created."

"I thought all creatures were created at the time Aslan brought Narnia into being?"

"Most everything was, but nature has a way of creating what it needs at the right time too."

Caspian threw his cloak on the ground and motioned for me to sit beside him, "The first nymph, Opiris, was born from a maiden crying into this very pool. The maiden was heartbroken over her lover that died in the war. A lover she would never hold again."

"How devastating...but if only one was created how are there so many now?"

"It's a long story," Caspian looked at me out of the corner of his eye, "I'm assuming you don't want to hear it?"

"Of course I want to hear it," I said nudging his shoulder with mine.

"When the maiden cried into the pool, the power of the memory in her tears combined with the water in the glade formed Opiris. She was sewn from a love-lorn woman, so naturally, her desire was to be loved deeply," Caspian gestured to a willow that's leaves gently caressed the water, "Opiris began to talk to a dryad that lived by her pool. The dryad's name was Anthe, and they became fast friends. For hundreds of years, Anthe's leaves dipped into Opiris's water and they say you could hear their laughter in the rush of the waterfall and the whisper of the willow's leaves."